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Tuesday, March 30, 1999

Like the Daffodils and Tulips, Silicon Alley parties are sprouting up in multitudes. And April brought no shortage of blooming events to attend. Rounding out the month of March were the "Fast Company" magazine's party in honor of their Agenda setters and the On-line Hip Hop awards show, honoring Webmasters who spread the spirit of Hip-Hop on the Internet. April started up a number of small soirees and thought-provoking conferences. A few firms and our own AlleyCat expanded space and staff -- and celebrated accordingly. And things left off with spring affairs for the UJA and the Pulitzer Prize announcements.

In honor of their Agenda setters and the issue titled in honor of them, "Fast Company" hosted a gathering on Tuesday, March 30th. If you haven't seen their current issue, it's all about the people, teams, and organizations that are addressing the business issues that matter in our future. Among the early attendees at the event were some of last year's agenda setters including Gordon Whitener (Interface Americas, Inc.) and Al West (SCI Investments). Polly LaBarre (senior editor, FC) and Julian Lowin (Associate Publisher) mixed with other agenda setters like Commander Mike Abrashoff (deputy director, global information and network systems for the Navy). He held a captive audience of myself and Alan Webber (founding editor, FC) as he told us about what his Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command unit does.

From the basement of Time café to the basement of Tramps I hopped on over to the On-line Hip-Hop awards on Tuesday, March 30th and there was quite a buzz about this event, which honored the finest hip-hop Web sites as chosen by the fans. Bob Ponce (WWWAC President) was there to present an award, and Cecilia Pagkalinawan (president, Boutique Y3K) was stationed at a case selling promotional items to benefit MOUSE (www.nymouse.org). Tom Tuomela (senior manager, marketing and merchandising, TWEC.com) showed us downstairs where the artists hung out before the show. The ceremony featured special performances by such legendary hip-hop acts as Chuck D, Naughty By Nature, Grandmaster Flash and DMC of Run-DMC. Two other twec.com-ers were busy at work too: Eric Fribush was setting up the on-line chat that Jim Smith would be moderating. Back upstairs were Kamuti Kiteme of SonicNet and Andrew Raisej (Digital Club Network and MOUSE) along with over 100 other hippers, hoppers, and rappers!

Final stop on the Courtney train ride for Tuesday was at Karma for an impromptu party that Peter Hershberg and Joshua Stylman of Rotomedia threw for Ask.com and Ask Jeeves! Rotomedia is an advertising solutions company that operates similarly to a Hollywood or sports agent. Josh Kimberg and Nick Cogan of Bullseye Art were out on the town as was Kerry Cooper of HumanFactors-id. David Shapiro of Ask Jeeves was a delightful guest and told us how this company's mission is to answer any question you may have, on the Internet. The butlers at the door were a charming touch too!

From the basement of Time café to the basement of Tramps I went trippingly along. Tramps was the venue for the On-line Hip-Hop awards on Tuesday, March 30th and there was quite a buzz about this event. The lines snaked down the street in two directions and not even VIPs like Bob Ponce (WWWAC President), who was a presenter giving an award, and other press could gain access. Once we got through the clan of Bruto-bruiser-bouncers, we were frisked and badged. Cecilia Pagkalinawan (president, Boutique Y3K) was stationed at a case full of t-shirts and other promotional items. Looking hip and cute in her purple hip-hop zippered sweatshirt she showed us the t-shirts, MOUSE (www.mouseny.com) mouse pads, and other goodies one could purchase, with proceeds going to MOUSE. Tom Tuomela (senior manager, marketing and merchandising, TWEC.com) showed us downstairs where the artists hung out before the show. The slightly smoky basement with mismatched threadbare sofas and weathered cocktail tables was the holding tank for various artists such as Heltah Skeltah and "Rap City" cable show host Joe Clair, who was opening the awards ceremony. A. Buttah from Natural Elements and The Last Emperor were hangin' out and polishing off some complementary Buffalo wings and potato salad. Chris Smyk and Christian Urich, who perform with King Sun, were taking it easy on a low sofa and I chatted with Mark Prindle of TSIPR. Tom Tuomela educated me on the Trans World Entertainment Company (twec.com) and how they are a major holding company for major music retailers. If you bought a record (or CD) in the last few years from a store (other than Tower and Virgin) you probably bought it from one of their properties. They have over 250,000 titles of music! Two other twec.com-ers were busy at work too: Eric Fribush was setting up the on-line chat that Jim Smith would be moderating. Back upstairs were Kamuti Kiteme of SonicNet and Andrew Raisej (Digital Club Network and MOUSE) along with over 100 other hippers, hoppers, and rappers!

"Those were some of the coolest special effects I've seen in a long time!" exclaimed Tery Spataro (COO, Blue Dingo). Sharleen Smith (USA Networks) and Stacy Horn (founder, EchoNYC) and even Ron Bloom (ceo, Think New Ideas) also came out to see these fantabulous special effects at Warner Brothers' special preview of the movie "Matrix." Occasionally Don Buckley of Warner Brothers Interactive invites new media professionals to see a special preview of an upcoming movie and learn about what his division of WB does in the Alley. Other new media sorts who came to see check out the high-tech film on Tuesday, March 30th were Jim Burris, who has started a new company, Bonnie Halper and David Blumenstein.

In addition to the movie preview, Amy Fried (Roz Goldfarb), Ben Austin (Comet Systems), and Annie Rhodes (Togglethis) hosted their Internet MFG (Mixer for Grownups) at Dominion on Tuesday, March 30th. And just down the street at Fez, "Fast Company" magazine hosted a gathering in honor of their agenda setters. If you haven't seen their current issue, it's all about the people, teams, and organizations that are addressing the business issues that matter in our future. Among the early attendees at the event were some of last year's agenda setters including Gordon Whitener (Interface Americas, Inc.) and Al West (SCI Investments). Linda Marten, Kathleen O'Leary and Kathleen Delaney represented Fast Company's sales team and communications manager Kathleen Crocker introduced me to some other FC-ers. Jeff Britt (international sales manager, FC), and Keith Hammonds (senior editor, FC) mingled with Al West. Polly LaBarre (senior editor, FC) and Julian Lowin mixed with other agenda setters like Commander Mike Abrashoff (deputy director, global information and network systems for the Navy). He held a captive audience of myself and Alan Webber (founding editor, FC) as he told us about what his Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command unit does, and how the Navy can save tax payers upwards of $2 billion a year in 6 years by having one IT infrastructure. He also explained the Navy's struggle to change the 33% attrition rate versus the high costs to advertise and get recruits. Comdr. Abrashoff is the first military figure highlighted in Fast Company and deserves his recognition for his new-thinking, a decorated history and future in whatever he does.

Saturday, March 27, 1999

NYU's Entrepreneurs Exchange held a seminar on Saturday, March 27th (http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~eex/). with interesting discussions on "Turning Your Vision into Reality" that the EE group organized. Keynotes included Jay Capela, (founder, Wild at Start), John Katzman (CEO and founder of The Princeton Review) and Polly. I spoke in the morning on Michael Ringel's (LTBN.com) panel of "Maneuvering Through Your Environment" with Nancy Ploeger (NYC Chamber of Commerce) and Dennis McLaughlin (CEO-Aurora Natural Gas). Michael Ringel conducted an audience-participation interaction and kept the flow going while he directed some questions to Dennis and Nancy. MBA students and EE members Lisa Kay, Jon Mensch, Andrew Heifetz, Philip Higginbotham deserve a round of applause for putting together a very professional, well-run, and interesting mini-conference.

"Everyone asks us what our exit strategy is, but we can't understand why anyone would want to give away their 'baby' right away," noted Todd Kritzelman (co-ceo, The Globe) during the panel he spoke on at NYU's Entrepreneurs Exchange seminar on Saturday, March 27th (http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~eex/). Moderated by Polly LaBarre (senior editor of Fast Company) Todd and Stephan Paternot (co-ceo, The Globe) chatted about how they still think of themselves as a startup and order pizzas on Fridays for their employees. This final panel ended a day of interesting discussions on "Turning Your Vision into Reality" that the EE group organized. Keynotes included Jay Capela, (founder, Wild at Start), John Katzman (CEO and founder of The Princeton Review) and Polly (who spoke in stead of Alan Webber). Connie Connors, Dan Pelson, and Andrew Raisej spoke on a panel of "Tales of Silicon Alley," and Lisa Bauxman, (Boxtree Communications), Scott Osman (Double Space), Nancy Slotkick (Drip Cafe(R)), and Matthew Diamond (Alloy) discussed branding issues and challenges on Professor Michael Darling's panel of "Branding Your Business." I spoke in the morning on Michael Ringel's (LTBN.com) panel of "Maneuvering Through Your Environment" with Nancy Ploeger (NYC Chamber of Commerce) and Dennis McLaughlin (CEO-Aurora Natural Gas). Our dear Burt Alimansky of Alimansky capital was scheduled to sit with us as well, but couldn't attend. Mr. McLaughlin, however, entertained the audience with many tales of how he started his company and what it's really like to ride a beat-up pick up through dusty Texas checking monitors of oil pressure. Michael Ringel conducted an audience-participation interaction and kept the flow going while he directed some questions to Nancy. Ms. Ploeger helped dispel stereotypes of Chamber of Commerces around the world. MBA students and EE members Lisa Kay, Jon Mensch, Andrew Heifetz, Philip Higginbotham deserve a round of applause for putting together a very professional, well-run, and interesting mini-conference.

Saturday, March 27th I will be speaking on a panel at NYU's Entrepreuneurs Exchange Inc. 4th Annual Conference on Entrepreneurship: "Turning Your Vision Into Reality: A Survival Guide For Entrepreneurs." Keynotes include Jay Capela (Wild@Start), John Katzman (The Princeton Review), and Alan Weber (Fast Company). I am speaking at 10:15 am on "Maneuvering Through Your Environment” with Burt Alimansky (Alimansky Capital) and Nancy Ploeger (NYC Chamber of Commerce) and moderated by Michael Ringel (Let's Talk Business Network). More info: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~eex/

NYU's Entrepreneurs Exchange held a seminar on Saturday, March 27th
(http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~eex/). with interesting discussions on "Turning Your Vision into Reality" that the EE group organized. Keynotes included Jay Capela, (founder, Wild at Start), John Katzman (CEO and founder of The Princeton Review) and Polly. I spoke in the morning on Michael Ringel's (LTBN.com) panel of "Maneuvering Through Your Environment" with Nancy Ploeger (NYC Chamber of Commerce) and Dennis McLaughlin (CEO-Aurora Natural Gas). Michael Ringel conducted an audience-participation interaction and kept the flow going while he directed some questions to Dennis and Nancy. MBA students and EE members Lisa Kay, Jon Mensch, Andrew Heifetz, Philip Higginbotham deserve a round of applause for putting together a very professional, well-run, and interesting mini-conference.

Friday, March 26, 1999

Gus Venditto of Internet.com opened up the final panel of the day at Refer-It's Affiliate Solutions '99 seminar on Friday, March 26th at the Harvard Club. Representatives from The Globe, Geocities, Tripod and Our Square spoke on their various affiliate programs and Michael Barrett of Geocities tried to defend his company's new policy of "pay to play" to a crowd of curious homesteaders, businesspeople and media. Earlier in the day Ellen Brezniak of BeFree, Joe Michaels of Nexchange and Heidi Messer of LinkShare discussed issues as solutions providers to affiliate programs. James Marciano, president of Refer-it.com and who spearheaded the organization of this mini-conference rounded out the day with closing remarks, and told me they sold out the conference twice! Over 250 people attended and there are plans to do similar programs around the country. Affiliate relationships and barter exchanges definitely seem to be becoming a trendy solution that many businesses are beginning to utilize.

MOVERS & SHAKERS
Laurel Wells has just accepted a Business Development position with Precision Entertainment, a web design company (in LA), that's launching an e-commerce supersite called "Whats Hot Now.com". She'll be in LA for the month of April and will then be opening an office in New York City sometime in early May. Ciao and Yipee for Laurel! Laurel@prsn.com (becomes active on Monday, March 29th)

Tucker Viemeister has joined the talented people over at razorfish as Executive Vice President of Research and Development. He will help develop and manage the product environment and 3D design components of Razorfish's Digital Change Management (sm). He was most recently, creative director and ambassador at Frogdesign, New York City, an office that he opened and directed. Tucker founded Smart Design, Inc. in 1979 with Davin Stowell, Tom Dair, and Tam Thompson, where he served as Vice President until joining Frogdesign in 1997.

Jordan Serlin will be leaving his post of Vice President of Marketing Operations at FortuneCity.com as of March 26th to pursue a project of personal interest. He thinks there are some truly amazing growth opportunities in FortuneCity's immediate future but is hoping to raise a big splash later this year with his project. You can contact him at serlin@usa.net.

Nancy Swiezy will be leaving the business development team at Richard A. Eisner to join Blue Dingo as director
of business development on 4/5/99. Ms Swiezy was instrumental in bringing the RAE Partners to the New York New Media Community. She leaves the firm with over 30 new clients and an awareness of who and how Eisner can help the New York new media grow their business.

Brian Czarny has just accepted a full time job with DirectWeb (the same company that Vernon Steward left THINK to join.) He'll be Director of Corporate Communications will be moving to Philly soon.

Happy Birthday to 5th Floor Interactive LLC, a next wave Internet development firm! They recently celebrated their one year anniversary, adding key management including, as a partner, interactive technology veteran Thomas Barton as Director of Technology and solidifying a new client relationship with Concepts Direct,
Inc. (NASDAQ: CDIR).

GROMCO AND CCM! GromCo Inc., an Internet startup company running a community of consumer-oriented Web sites, launched CreditCardMenu.com -- an online resource for consumers looking to find the credit card that best meets their needs. The Web site is an improved and redesigned version of the company's ``Credit Card Advisor'' service, which has been online since 1996 and was ranked No. 1 by Infoseek.

TUNES.COM IN XTC! Well, we all know the web is the place where you can find links to almost anything you can't find in the mainstream. And Tunes.com, in keeping with its strategy to be "all things music" and "technology agnostic," is now offering XTC's cleverly controversial new song "Your Dictionary" for free, exclusively on RollingStone.com in Liquid Audio format. Due to its controversial lyrics, this song apparently may never make it to the mainstream airwaves, so TVT Records and Tunes.com have teamed up to promote the new album via digital download.

SPUTNIK'S LAUNCHED! Seth Palmer has been a bit consumed lately working on a really kick-ass project while working at Viant ... and now it's live: http://www.sputnik7.com. It's streaming music video entertainment and *warning* you must have a fast computer (PC compatible, 200Mhz Pentium II or better, Mac PPC 604e 166 or better), lots of RAM, Flash plug-in and the RealVideo plug-in. A fast connection is best, but 56K will suffice.

KUDOS TO BRAIN BUG! One of their projects, The Hartford Courant's web site, has been awarded a superior rating of 4 by CNET's Builder.com Critique of the Week. The site launched late last year and is described by CNET as "...clean and crisp, with subtle and consistent use of color, type, space, and well designed headers..." (complete review and interview with BrainBug can be found here: http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/Critique/031799/?st.bl.gr.gr)

JUMPCUT AT THE OSCARS! Superstar Beck headlined the "HSX and Excite Rock the Academy Awards" Webcast from the House of Blues on March 21. The Webcast is http://hsx.excite.com. Showcasing the latest technologies, the Webcast was co-produced by JumpCut, a Silicon Alley production company which has also produced Webcasts for the Tibetan Freedom Concert and Backstage at the Tony Awards, will co-produce the Webcast with HSX.

MININGCO AND IPO. I'm sure you've all heard, but in case you're head was buried in your computer like mine was this week, you should know that the MiningCo.com, Inc. announced the start of their IPO of 3,000,000 shares of its common stock, all of which are being issued and sold by the company, at a price of $25.00 per share.

Thursday, March 25, 1999

The 12th Annual Dallas Video Festival (http://www.videofest.org, "Better Living Through Video") ran March 25-28 at the Dallas Theater Center and featured four theaters' worth of local, national, and international video productions. This year's festival was sponsored in part by local Internet star Broadcast.com. The full program is available at the website, but highlights included presentation of the 1999 Ernie Kovacs Award to Paul Reubens, a.k.a. Pee-Wee Herman. This should go well in the Playhouse next to his "Solo Artist of the Year" trophy from a few years back :-) WFAA-TV of Dallas, "The Nation's First HDTV Station", filled the lobby with High-Definition TVs. As they showed nothing but nature films and parades I was left to wonder whether we'd really won the Cold War after all. Oh well, the picture quality rocks. The McKinney Avenue Contemporary, a local art gallery (http://www.themac.net), featured a concurrent video art exhibit, "Wired for Living". The exhibit stretched "new media" to its limits, with works such as Matthew McCaslin's "Pride of Place" (Video monitors, wheelbarrow, clocks and wiring) and Johnny Walker's Mnemoniscope (Installation including 8mm-film projector, six humidifiers and a chair).

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," Lillian Langeveld said as she described her approach to pursuing her dreams of being a singer, despite the competitive industry. Lillian is one of 6 national Girls Inc. scholars who presented an award to honorees at the Girls Inc. celebration luncheon on Thursday, March 25 at the NY Hilton. This 1300+ attended event attracted sponsors of Avon, Mattel, American Express, Coca-Cola and Gevalia. Co-chairs from each of these companies spoke on their motives behind helping this organization, which focuses on inspiring all girls to be strong, smart and bold. Star Jones of ABC's The View introduced the bright and ambitious scholarship winners and told of her personal story of struggling with dealing with her finances. Tables around the room were filled with representatives of iVillage, Lifetime TV and Merrill Lynch. Tery Spataro, COO of Blue Dingo generously offered me her ticket, and I sat with Kathleen Boyle, senior VP and investment officer at Wheat First Union and Cherie Alcoff and Annie Pankoski of Goldman Sachs. Kathleen is a popular speaker and guest of cable shows for investment matters and offered her critique of whether the honorees had used speech coaches. I was marveling at the fact Ingrid Saunders Jones, VP, the Coca-Cola company told us how girls in the SMART program with Girls Inc. showed a 35% increase in math skills.

Truc Lai was the next of the scholarship winners, who each received $10,000 towards their higher education. She spoke on racism and growing up in a Vietnamese family that moved here when she was an infant. She introduced Abby Joseph Cohen, managing director of Goldman Sachs, who also spoke on how we must change the accessiblity of technology for girls to advance. Virnetta Greene, the next scholar from Alabama, charmed us with her drawl and 4.0 GPA. She introduced Bridgette Heller, who couldn't accept her award in person as she was in Texas getting her new (adopted) daughter this day! Michelle Taveras, from the Girls Inc. chapter in NYC introduced Andrea Jung of Avon Corp, who told us how this 113 year old company has been helping women make money before they could vote. Kyla Ketchum, a senior from Alabama introduced Suze Orman who inspired us with calls to believe that we can do anything. And Kimberly Birkmayer, a woodworking afficionado and artist from upstate NY introduced Veronica Pollard, who's had a unique career path from 1st grade teacher in the Bronx to manager at Newsweek to reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle to a PR exec. in Tokyo to her role as VP at Toyota. Lunch was fine but the energy and inspiration in this room was the real treat. The calls to be strong, smart and bold go along way, but now we must also do our part of making technology and business opportunities available to young girls everywhere.

Wednesday, March 24, 1999

Matt Straznitskas sends in a dispatch from our Hudson Valley new media neighbors with a recap of his BrainBug Ball '99. In brief -- it was a great success! The event ran from 4:30 to 9PM on Wednesday, March 24, 1999, with a major presentation to launch BrainBug's four new Web products (http://www.brainbug.com/exclusive.html). Over 120 attendees, an invigorating mix of new media clients, partners, vendors and media, jammed into their funky new offices of 3,000 sq. feet in The Exchange in Farmington, Connecticut. With the line of visitors waiting to get in spilling out the door and the hour getting late, they moved the party down to Murphy and Scarletti's, a hot little nightspot/watering hole literally down the hall. Talk about location! Rob Norman of London-based Tempus Group/Outrider company made an announcement of their new investment in BrainBug, which gave him a terrific opportunity to meet and greet long time BrainBug clients such as Aetna, The Hartford, Phoenix Home Life, Metaserver, and The Hartford Courant. Katie Peters and Spencer Spinell of NYC's Kokopelli (BrainBug's sister company from the Outrider family that now stretches from Oregon, NYC, and Hartford to the UK, Spain, Germany and Hong Kong) were also on hand to mingle with attendees. They also made an announcement that BrainBug would soon be using their amazing Web-based Hotkoko software for project management, billing and more! Check out the picture of Rob Norman (CEO, Outrider), Spencer Spinell (CCO, Kokopelli), (Matt Straznitskas, President, BrainBug), and Katie Peters (CEO, Kokopelli) in front of our new product flags!

Bullseye! I don't always throw a great pitch, but the guys at BullseyeArt/Play Design are right on target. This group of extremely talented artistes have just expanded and moved into new office space at 444 Park Avenue South. And to celebrate, they had a party on Wednesday, March 24th. I met Alex Meyer, production artist at Iguana Studios, talking with Nick Cogan, creative director of Bullseye, by the door as I came into the airy white office space made cozy with a cushiony slate blue carpet. They pointed out the high vaulted skylight ceiling as Sean Pangia, content engineer at Iguana, joined us. Nick took me around the open space where the production team works and showed me the private offices lining the wall with windows looking onto Park Avenue South. There is a small kitchen, and the conference room doubled as a buffet room for the night. The music was hip and loud and the guests were groovin'. Speaking of groovin', the artwork on their walls is simply stunning! Paintings mounted on plexiglass frames of sorts with bright vibrant colors and bold illustrations and strokes each took a wall as a main centerpiece. Some were illuminated from behind and they were all captivating. As Josh Kimberg, CEO of Bullseye, explained they hire from the art schools and train classically-schooled artists in Flash, as opposed to finding new media artists and trying to train them classic illustration and design. The theory works for them because they are getting written about in all sorts of publications, including one in Germany. Josh has also been speaking at several conferences including Milia where he was asked to be in the Zapper show at the end of the conference--a gong show of sorts. At Burda advertising agency's "Envisioning Knowledge Conference" he was asked to speak on interface design but ended up covering political issues related to growing up with technology in his life. Sandra Garcia of Shoot magazine was hanging out in Josh's office, which is also where I met his brother, Michael, an account manager at Bullseye.

Tuesday, March 23, 1999

"Stream me the money!" and "Turning Bits into Bucks" were just two of the catchy titles for panels during Kagan Seminars' three day Digital Entertainment Summit East at the Park Lane Hotel from Tuesday, March 23rd through Thursday, March 25th. Josh Harris of Pseudo spoke on "How streaming media is transforming television" along with Craig Ullman, vice president of ACTV and Scott Ehrlich, senior vice president & exec. producer, News America Digital Publishing. Rotem Perelmuter, VP/Strategy, MTV Interactive and Geroge Longwell, VP/Sales, OnRadio spoke about how revenue streams from traditional radio to the web is transpiring. It was a stellar cast on many interesting panels, but as I was only stopping in between travels I didn’t get to listen in much. Kagan's is back in early April and you can find more information at 831.624.1536.

Friday, March 19, 1999

MOVERS & SHAKERS
Of course we all know that iVillage Inc. announced their IPO on 3/18 of 3,650,000 shares of common stock -- and the market's going craaaazy!

Community Connect Inc. (www.communityconnect.com),
publisher of ethnic online communities, announced a partnership
with MediaRing Inc, leading provider of Internet voice
communication applications and services. Members of
AsianAvenue.com, the largest online community for Asian
Americans, now have access to instant voice interaction
on the Web. COOL!

Local Jeff Sanders (at Winstar) produced Hellhounds on My Trail:The Afterlife
of Robert Johnson along with director Robert Mugge, in conjunction with the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This premiered at SXSW. More on this cool film as
soon as I see it and review it!

Nicholson NY has been retained by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to
spearhead the museum's new e-commerce initiative involving the Museum
store, collections and educational programs. Nicholson is providing the Met
with strategic consulting, branding, design and engineering services. Among
the goals of our assignment is establishing the Met as a world leader among
museums in leveraging technology to advance its mission.

Last week I forgot to mention that The Globix Corporation provided all of the exhibitors at the NY Music and Internet Expo with FREE Internet Access as well as streamed the panels and concerts live over the web. Yikes! How could I have forgotten that?!

Of course we all know that iVillage Inc. announced their IPO on 3/18 of 3,650,000 shares of common stock -- and the market's going craaaazy!

Community Connect Inc. (www.communityconnect.com),publisher of ethnic online communities, announced a partnership with MediaRing Inc, leading provider of Internet voice communication applications and services. Members of AsianAvenue.com, the largest online community for Asian Americans, now have access to instant voice interaction on the Web. COOL!

Local Jeff Sanders (at Winstar) produced Hellhounds on My Trail:The Afterlife of Robert Johnson along with director Robert Mugge, in conjunction with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This premiered at SXSW. More on this cool film as soon as I see it and review it!

Nicholson NY has been retained by The Metropolitan Museum of Art tospearhead the museum's new e-commerce initiative involving the Museumstore, collections and educational programs. Nicholson is providing the Met with strategic consulting, branding, design and engineering services. Among the goals of our assignment is establishing the Met as a world leader among museums in leveraging technology to advance its mission.

The BLO and Hacktivism: Bruce Sterling's sterling moderation of R.U. Sirius, Ray Thomas, Alex Sheshunoff and Steven Wray -- What would YOU do with $50 million and why is Bill Gates a "little cyber freak?"

This week was a lovely break from NY as I traveled down to Austin, TX for the South By SouthWest Conference. Twelve single-spaced typed pages were not what I thought would endear me to my readers, so I have included an outline, some snippets and "teasers" to whet your appetite, and for you to link to.

I hope you enjoy learning about some of the fascinating people I met, ideas I heard, and attributes about this quite wired town, as I did while there.

Don't forget, if you're interested subscribing or advertising (cause it’s a great way to join my club and get in front of a savvy audience), then please drop me an e-mail! courtney@pulitzer.com

A conference that discusses convergence is one thing, but a conference that IS convergence is another. Thisbuzzword has been flying around the industry for a whileand Austin, TX's South By Southwest Conference (SXSW)'99 was a real world manifestation of the future direction of the Internet.

"Learn, Work, Play." These were the words of Lloyd Walker, director of business development, Human Code that he gave during his presentations at the conference over two days. I feel they best sum up the experience of Austin's SXSW, which focused on and highlighted the convergence relationship between industries. This tri-part, eleven day "orgy" (conference) from March 10th through 21st has two "mini" sections for film and interactive and then a bigger, longer music extravaganza. If you can imagine every bar in town hosting one band each hour for a week, and with all the top rock label reps, agents and musicians in town, this place rocks! Not to mention the Tex-Mex food is divine!

But before the music show takes stage, the first two acts have quite a draw themselves. "Film" draws at least 2200 registered attendees and "Interactive" over 2000. Foot traffic for the exhibition will climb over last year's number of 10,000. Charlotte Franklin, PR consultant for SXSW said traffic and attendance have steadily risen since '94 when, Film and Interactive started, by one third and she expects that number to get higher. The music segment, which has been in existencefor thirteen years, and is the main show for Austin, draws over 6000 people. Even the rodeo, an event you might typically associate with a Texan town, which was going on at the other end of town, doesn't draw as many people.

Personally, I was anglin' to escape the Technology Frontier track and head over to hear the Whistling Contest or see Randall's Racing Pigs, maybe check out the Cow Chip Toss or participate in the Animal Imitation Contest. I can make a mean Moo! Well, anyway…

Thursday, March 18, 1999

THE SCENE IN DALLAS, TX
My good friend Eric Olsson wrote in that he saw Terry Allen, Lucinda Williams, and David Byrne (!) do an acoustic song swap at a small club in Dallas to raise money to build a statue of C.B. Stubblefield, king of the West Texas barbecue. It was very much "NY meets TX." Song swaps are traditionally unrehearsed and it was fun to see David Byrne forget half the words to Heaven and Life During Wartime but play them regardless. It's too bad the show didn't coincide with the SXSW, as to me, it was the essence of the Texas music scene. More info on Terry Allen and the concert here: http://www.dallasobserver.com/archives/1998/031899/music2.html

Monday, March 15, 1999

While all these events were going on, Doug Block's screening of , an independent film about people with personal sites was shown at The Alamo with a party afterwards at WholeFoods.com. I stopped by and caught up with the San Francisco contingent--Molly Steenson, Janelle Brown, Adam Powell of Greenrocket.com (and a professional musician), Jeff Veen (Hotwired) and Halcyon Styn (cockybastard.com). They were saying how was a very moving account of times past and left many people with a powerful feeling of high school from two years ago. At the end of the screening all the Hotwired people cheered and Adam ran into the media darling of this film, Justin Hall and Carl Steadman, who he recognized as having definitely changed. Carl is marketing himself now, whereas he used to be grounded and secure, now he's a rock star who's frustrated by Justin's truly engaging personality.

We all formed a posse and in separate vehicles made a procession to Paco's big party of the night at the Fringeware store. I had fabulously witty repartee with Beatrice Springborn, Jeff Veen and Peter Merholz, who has the second best business card I've ever seen, after mine.

[[MARCH 26, 1999:
THE AUSTIN SCENE REVISTED. Okay. Sometimes my reporting gets a bit fuzzy around the edges. But could you blame me when you're out amidst all these people imbibing and having fun? Sometimes this reporter wants to kick back a few too! Well, my account of Adam Powell's conversation about the Home Page movie and Carl Steadman got a bit tangled and here is a clarification. Adam, who admits he too had a few cocktails, completely denies all ill vibes against Carl, "who is something of a living legend and a genuinely affable fellow…Carl is everyone's hero... " So there. We're all in agreement. We all love Carl and wish him well. Maybe he'll even grace one of the Cocktails With Courtney parties? And, if you want to read a poetic account of SXSW, here's Adam's story: http://www.fillet.com/99/03/index1.html ]]

From the Speakeasy, Eric and I ambled down 6th Street, the popular downtown street with bars, restaurants, shops and musical venues. We spied a bat that lost its way and crawled sickily on the sidewalk. Eeew! Then we went a bit further to a nice restaurant called Louie's 106 for some tapas and continued onto Club DeVille for Her Domain and Reel Women's party. Set in an old gas station of sorts, and nestled against a rocky cliff, I felt like I was in a Flintstones' cartoon. This was heightened by the fact that Mandy Jay and "Buttah-Fly" were like Bam-Bam in an all girl ska rap band, and I was sitting in a hard rubber modular chair. Donna Kidwell, an expert in databases at Tipton Cole and Co. and founder of Her Domain and I had chatted briefly before she left for dinner--four months pregnant, she needs to take care of those "details!" Donna also has two other children and says that "it is possible to have a business and be a stay-at-home mom!" Donna is one of Austin's leading ladies in terms of the technology scene. Another personality-about-town is Content Love Knowles, a former dominatrix and now webmaster for adult and non-adult-themed sites.

I met up with Spain and Wolff at Hoovers' private reception at a truly hidden but poplar Speakeasy. You gained access to the establishment from a smoothly polished wood door in a small alley. Inside it was like any dark wood-paneled, brass and forest green decorated classy pub. A band sang jazz and blues and upstairs guest enjoyed a wide array of finger food sandwiches, tartlets, cheese and crackers and melt-in-your-mouth Viennese brownies. My guest (and personal chauffeur!) for the evening was Eric Olsson who's role as new business development at Novare was perfectly suited for attending multiple events and meeting people. Mary Mickle, an editor with Hoovers told me and Cecil Winzer, a co-founder of collegestudent.com, how Hoovers has a significantly large group of editors. Cecil, in a crisp maroon shirt and matching tie, gave us the history of how he and three of his rugby friends founded their company four years ago. Their 3300 square feet offices are near UT and have 40 employees locally and 100 nationwide. Lucy Mohl, a film critic for 10 years and who founded film.com was chatting it up with Wolff, and I met Tara Fatemi, a writer at Hoovers, who looked artistically elegant with an icy white scarf as an accessory. Enrique Gonzales, editor of Hispanic On-line and Eric Periche, director of on-line technology at Hoovers were giving me the scoop on who's plugged into the scene. Lisa Glass and Stephanie Dodds were doing a fine job in their communication and PR roles, mingling about. Chuck Green of Caprock Media; David Avery, director of the Internet development group at Human Code; David Reid, design director at Tripod and D.C. Toedt III of Arnold, White & Durkee were also enjoying the libations and good vibrations at Hoovers.

PhotoDek sponsored a happy hour with beers, bad pizza and fried food. The Independent Film channel also served beers and water throughout the show. PhotoDek did make up for any tasteless party snacks by offering fortune cookies everywhere and taking pictures of attendees with either Austin Powers or Darth Vadar. Check out mine! Yeah Baby!

Meanwhile, in the seminar room next door, Michael Wolff was speaking to a packed room on a panel devoted to "Web Business Models." Moderated by David Dix of Dell, the panel also had noted Patrick Spain, Chairman and CEO of Hoovers, Carey Earle (Barn Door Consulting and co-founder of Word.com), Chris Clark (GCI group), Tish Williams of Upside and Jim Seymour from PC Magazine. "Sometimes success is inherited" Michael Wolff espoused, "you're either born a retailer or you're not." Dave Dix chimed in promoting Dell's strength of great customer service, which doesn't always mean great prices. Figure out who you want to service and what you want. When asked which sites do they think are successful, Jim Seymour called out "BigWords.com" and Carey Earle told us of various artisans (rug loomers) who have sites where they sell online. Chris Clark wished he thought of ebay or MP3. Guess we all can't have the next great idea, can we?

The last track of the day put me in the presence of the uber-talented Jeff Veen and Derek Powazek for Derek's presentation on "Design for Community." He spoke to a packed room of community-site webmasters, authors and artists, and his notes are on-line at www.powazek.com/dfc/. Derek is no stranger to creating gorgeously designed community sites, with Fray.com and Kvetch.com under this belt. SFStories.com is one of his most recent sites where he wanted to share his stories of life in San Francisco. Not to be greedy, he's created a "Your Stories" section where other people can add their own. After the panel I caught up with Drue Miller, another powerful design guru who had a presentation on Sunday.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mark Pesce was ruffling some features in his presentation "Black and White and Read All Over: Post-Test Post-Haste." As he spoke a large screen featured the word "Black" typed in white and "White" in black on a red background while they faded horizontally and vertically. Some of his controversial tidbits for the day were "Apple hasn't had a unique idea since '78 and IBM since '82." He told us about two brilliant architects whose work reveal revolutionary integrated thinking. He thinks architects are the most left-brained artists and what he loves about what they do is that they create the WHOLE work. If you take away one piece of their work, the whole thing can fall apart. He sees this as a way the web must be thought of, as a fully integrated unit, not separate elements.

The first architect he mentioned was Michael Graves in Silicon Valley, who designed a steel cloud that extends between two highways in LA. There are steel fishes and an aquarium integrated throughout the design and the beauty of it is that it is meant to be viewed at 50 mph. Then he told us about Hani Rashid, who started the Computer Lab at Columbia's Architecture School. Rashid created a meta-management system the New York Stock Exchange requested in a complaint that they were losing people, all the IPOs were going to NASDAQ and they weren't as "cool." Done entirely in VRML, he created a room where data is projected streaming by on the walls. If a broker wanted to find out more, they would just pick up a pair of binoculars and interact with the data.

Pesce likes that the web is becoming more personal and believes it needs to be so much more than just text, hypertext, ASCII and links. The web isn't about text at all -- "I think we got confused" -- there're other languages out there: body language, sign language, etc. "Where is the music?," Mark asks. Sound should be integral to the medium (with the exception of hearing your machine furiously whir as you push it to the max!). "It's too quiet!" To which Tristan Mendoza, a multimedia-jack-of-all-trades at the University of Texas, and a few others in the back muttered "I don't want my computer making noises!" Pesce feels it needs to be more tangible, sensual (visually lush, 3D, musical) and kinetic (thinking and interacting) with our bodies -- not just an experience of typing into a computer. How archaic! These problems aren't technical problems however, he sees them as ones that designers must solve. And he doesn't want to see these challenges left to the self-styled designers, either. Otherwise you're signing your consciousness over to them and very soon cyberspace will look like the insides of our heads. Huh? Well, more than one of Pesce's comments elicited responses from the audience and when Paco Xander Nathan, president and editor (and Austin's Alternative Guru) of Fringeware announced we had to end, questions still hung in the air.

Afterwards I went up to Paco, who I'd heard about the night before from a few people who touted his hipness, connected-ness and ultimately hip community-generating role in Austin. Paco founded Fringeware, an on-line and physical bookstore in 1992, edits "Fringeware Review" magazine, writes for various new-age tech tomes and has cyber salons in town. He's been involved in the Internet since 1983 and has a background in engineering. Every week he hosts an event in his bookstore--either an author, artist, DJ or other content-maker/producer comes to speak and people come to engage, conflict, collaborate. Paco gave me some great insight into his salons and others occurring around the country. I got a chance to see it all in action later that night at his big party for SXSW.

For a quick lunch break I enjoyed the sunny weather and walked over to the authentic Tex-Mex diner near the Convention center with the Chickclick chicks (Heidi Swanson, Heather Irwin, Caroline Frye and Beatrice Springborn), Joey Anuff, Heather Gold and Owen Thomas. I left them to their burritos and swung by Human Code for the tail end of their lunchtime press conference. This interactive applications development firm has expertise in business, education and entertainment and has created several significant products. On Monday they announced their acquisition of San Rafael, CA Presage Software Development and that they completed their second round of VC financing for $5 million. Dr. David Palumbo, VP learning technologies demoed their K-Prep (Kindergarten Preparation) product for Ignite! This product merges tactile and interactive technology with an engaging curriculum, targeted for children ages 3-5. This smart board technology allows you to use the board as a mouse and trace a letter with your finger. When two people draw together their markings get averaged out and mirrored on the mouse/board/screen. Wanna get more interactive? Hurl a beanie baby at the moving bullseye target. Smart toys are becoming more popular learning toys when something little Debbie learns at school can come home with her and continue its educational value. This product and technology was quite advanced and yet was only out of the laboratory three weeks.

Lindsey Gupton, VP of development then took us upstairs where we saw Ellie's Enchanted Garden, being developed for Zowie International. Heather Anne Halpert, who slightly resembled Ellie with pigtails, dark jeans and white oxford, demoed how the user can interact with the software through using actual game pieces. Heather placed the character Ellie up and down on the game board repeatedly and in the computer, on the software, she jumped-rope. Imitating watering a tree produced apples in the software version, which in a kids testing session produced peals of glee from all the girls, and moving a telescope over the board revealed what was underground in the virtual world. Jennifer Christensen and Jayson Franklin also worked on this game and I'd say have a lot to be proud of. It really is neat! and will retail for $50-60.

After the panel I met Matt Broermsa of ZDNet News, Stuart Heady of the Web Coalition in Austin and the famous Owen Thomas of Ditherati. Owen told me how United Flight 172 from San Francisco was pretty much filled with people coming for this show. The NY contingent also came out en masse and these two camps were interesting cliques to revolve around during the festivities.

One of the great things about the SXSWS was that there really were a lot of great ideas discussed. Unlike trade shows and conferences in Silicon Alley where sometimes it feels like it's always the same schpiel and ramblings about e-commerce and content and broadband and DaDeeDaDadDo, this one had truly rich discussions by serious content makers, designers, and business leaders.

One such panel was the one Joey Anuff of Suck.com moderated. He led Janelle Brown (Salon.com), Nikol Lohr (DisgruntledHousewife.com), Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News) and Halcyon Styn (cockybastard.com) in a discussion on "Secrets of Successful Webzines." Janelle started her first zine in '96 and had a picture of Joey and Carl in her office as a dartboard for inspiration. Nikol's popular site originated out of her feeling she should stop bothering her friends with her gripes and put them on-line. She stared the Dick List and didn't even think people would read it. However, after her first Cease and Desist letter when a CEO of Prodigy was listed, the last names were taken down. Harry Knowles, another microstar in Austin, whose site gets over 400,000 hits per day started his zine out of a passion for and an expertise in film criticism. Joey and Carl started suck.com in reaction against the cult of personalities (yet have become personalities themselves now), and as he states, hates seeing pictures of columnists next to their work. His thought is that it gives people the chance to say "Hmmm. There's something I don’t like and I think its you!" when they can see your picture. Gee. I hope he doesn't see my site ;) ! Janelle said "the really good zines have a strong voice and personality." It doesn't matter if it's written perfectly or correctly, as long as the voice is there, to which Halcyon and Harry replied that they don't even use spell checkers or copyeditors at times.

Addressing the famedom aspect that these panelists enjoy, Janelle retorted that they at Salon are just like everyone else--there are no Madonna's on the web. (Really? Coulda fooled me!) Salon is just a group of people who have opinions and want to express themselves. People who have smart provocative viewpoints, that is. Janelle also spoke ardently against the use of the world "zine" feeling it diminutized the work. Harry didn't mind it and I personally think it's appropriate. Content rich sites with regular updates aren't MAG-a-zines, and Electronic Zine, e-zine, and zine are apt descriptions of something that's quick, changeable, mutable and new. Halcyon didn't focus on the word so much as the fact that anyone with Notepad and a pirated copy of PhotoShop can now compete with the likes of Microsoft as opposed to having to go to Kinkos and make copies for distribution. At Suck, Joey added, they thought having a white background was a step forward. He predicted a future where the next revolutionary site will have a gray background and broken Gifs. Maybe he should check out my site. (kidding!)

Michael Wolff put some fear in the audience with his unusually long pause at the start of his keynote speech this second day of the conference. Was he going to lash out? What would he do? The truth was, he made the classic speech-givers mistake and glanced at his notes before beginning to speak. To his surprise, he'd brought his notes he'd given last week on Telephony. Pro that he is, he recalled his speech from memory and began. He touched upon the huge phenomenon of chats and how they are largely responsible for AOL's growth. Wolff admitted that if he could be anywhere, he'd be in the space of making stories, of making connections, of being with people. He loves the possibility that there is some new way of expanding yourself and touching people. Wolff's closing note was a headline he found so perfect he didn’t even read the story. "Teenage Girl Abducted into the Internet via Web Cam while Masturbating."

Bright and early Monday morning, March 15th, I went for a lovely jog along the Colorado River, which runs right behind my hotel. Area crew rowing teams were gathered for their morning exercises too-- and on my way back I discovered that the bridge directly next to my hotel, The Congress Bridge, is famous for the millions of bats that gather there and take flight each day at sunset. So that's what all that chirping was at night!

Sunday, March 14, 1999

After dinner we went to the big party for the conference at the world-renowned Frog Design (http://www.frogdesign.com/). Designers of the Apple SE and Dual's modular stereo, this architectural, interactive and graphic design firm has expansive offices in Austin. Green frog cutouts were projected on the outside of the building and inside many offices had, well, frog tchotchkes. The paper drywall walls (ala Avalanche Systems new offices in NYC before they merged with Razorfish) and raffia-like carpets, soft lighting and other elements conveyed organic and simple hi-tech design. Vicky Faith, the hostess who ran the party like a pro, and Frog's operations manager, was attired in a lovely green silk kimono, Chinese slippers and had chopsticks in her hair. Flags and beers from around the world where Frog has offices were represented. There was Warstein beer by the German Polka players, Tecate by the Mexican Mariachi band and Voodoo by the Cajun Zydeco band. There even was a room with a bellydancer. Fortune cookies with funny sayings filled up baskets throughout the floors. Mine said, "If you are caught wearing your loved one's underwear, act like nothing is wrong." Okaaay, point taken. Julie Proshek, a curator and artist and who was crucial in starting the Robot Group was striking in a silk silver ensemble and told me of the brilliant and award winning design work she has done. She recommended I check out Design Edge, a company with offices in Austin that truly excel in design. Throughout the evening people flowed through the spaces and oogled at Frog's museum of product displays, super high-end video and multimedia production equipment and views. This was the party to be at and while the space was expansive, throughout the conference everyone I spoke with had been at this party at some point.

From there I checked out some of the Exhibition Hall booths and found some great groups! Namely The Robot Group (www.robotgroup.com), which has been in existence for 10 years and is focused on promoting the development of blending art and technology and sharing their creations with the world. So here you have about seven men and one woman sitting and building robot arms, tinkering with gadgets, operating remote controlled trucks with cameras attached. Sharing their booth was Brooks Coleman of the Art Bra. Brooks designs bras out of metal, plastic and wood to form avant-garde breastplates. Models have worn his creations in the city and just maybe there'll be a mini fashion show at an upcoming Cocktails With Courtney. But I think I'll wait till the warmer weather.

Another fascinating group was the Brain Actuated Technologies, Inc. Their Brain Actuated Music 2.0 for Win95/98 uses a headband with three sensors that detect electrical signals on your forehead from subtle facial movements and brain activity. Connected to an interface box, the energy from your forehead is transferred to your computer and decoded into music and mandalas. This high tech experience is also a very organic one. Christian Berg, musician and scientist told me a bit about this as a gentleman was exploring new physic dimensions with it.

One of the larger booths was housed by Novare (http://www.novare.net/), a large Dallas-based complete new media solutions company combining serious technical expertise with an artistic eye. After meeting Eric Olsson and Ean Schuessler, who were quite knowledgeable on several "scenes" in Texas, and having a fruitful discussion, I had the opportunity to join them for a delicious Tex-Mex food at Churra's Grill. Ean spent some time telling me about the origins of Debian Linux (http://www.debian.org/), a form of Linux started by Debra and Ian Jackson, which launched with one password and literally overnight had over 100 accounts and developed software living on its server. Now there are over 2200 software packages developed for it. Ean and his girlfriend also have some notoriety for their Disturbathon events. You can find out more about this neat couple at (http://www.hotweird.com/disturbathon/).

Panels at the conference were broken down into four different tracks: Web Business, Publishing, Entertainment and The Technological Frontier. Panels started on Sunday, March 14th and ranged from a case study on CollegeStudent.com, to Jaime Levy of Electronic Hollywood speaking on a panel about "Adding Animation to your Site," to Heather Gold of Zing Network and Tangent (a live alternative comedy show) speaking on "Where Web Entertainment is Going."

I stopped by Aliza Sherman's (Cybergrrl) panel to hear Heather Irwin of EstroNet, Ellen Pack (women.com), Janelle Brown (Salon, Maxi), Heidi Swanson (Chickclick) and Maura Johnston (maura.com) speak on how they started their sites and other issues revolving around design, community and making money.

All women spoke of the advantages of viral marketing and befriending journalists. If you become a resource for them, they might be inclined to help you out. In that vein, helping each other out in general was advised because "when one of us succeeds, all of succeed."

Here are some other thoughts: On Interactivity: Ellen Pack touted "me-centric" programming as something she'd like to see more of, this interactivity based on the user will help the web be more useful.

On sharing: Maura Johnston told us about a section on gurl.com that was devoted to body hair. Next to each woman's post on the BBS was a little icon of what kind of body hair she was discussing in her post, with another icon showing what method of removal she was referring to. Maura cited this as a beautiful example of women sharing information, stories and ideas, which is one of the strengths about women and their use of the net.

One of my personal thoughts on women and the Internet, which has been covered in magazines from Forbes to Wired to Self, is on how and why women will take over the Net. The very nature of the Net is collaborative, interactive and intuitive, which are all precepts that women understand inherently and excel in.

On Audiences: Janelle Brown encouraged long-winded writers with a lot to say with the thought that maybe short pithy web sites aren't always appropriate. Maybe your readers want long, thoughtful diatribes. Maybe short and pithy isn't good enough for them.

A woman from the audience inquired about if there are any sites geared for women over 35. After mentioning thirdAge.com and women2women.com the discussion addressed demographics and how there aren't many sites necessarily geared for the "Sandwich" generation--it's still very youth driven and oriented with a gap till the very large senior demographic.

Molly Steenson of Maximag encourage everyone, "if you don't see it--create it!" On this note, Fazia, a woman from Pakistan recounted how she started her own site in 1994 as a way to tell her new friends about herself, the Internet and Pakistani women. (www.io.com/~fazia).

Local webmistress heroine Nikol Lohr of "The Disgruntled Housewife.com" chirped up and plugged her new site "SmileandActNice.com" and told us she's looking for writers and other people interested in contributing.

The panel ended on a great note of "get out there and just do it" and "collaborate!"

Saturday, March 13, 1999

The interactive part of SXSW started off with a big party at the GSD&M advertising agency offices on Saturday March 13th from 6:00 PM. In addition to the standard welcoming speeches, there was a tribute to Dewey Winburne, who passed away and was an instrumental part of starting the SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference in '94. Previewing this night was ten minutes of the world's first on-line opera "Honoria in Ciberspazio" performed by real live opera singers singing songs people wrote and submitted on-line. SXSW and Texas Interactive Media presented awards for a whole host of categories. Local stars such as Monkey Media and many other Austin businesses filled out the list of contenders. But NYC had a fair share of representation in the likes of Maura Johnston of Hicksville, NY for best personal site (maura.com) and the only entry for Best On-line Drama/Narrative Site for bittersweets.org. Brisbane, CA was well represented also with Chickclick's entries in Best Girl's/Women's site and Best On-line Community. Other New Yorkers being reviewed for Best Art Site were Vivian Selbo for "Killer @pp~it's all t@lk" and Ron English for "Ron English: Popaganda."

Friday, March 12, 1999

GIST Communications, the leading independent producer of TV listings guides on the Internet, is making news these days. They have added two seasoned and top-of-the-line industry professionals to their roster. Wanda Rachel Glinert is now executive director of marketing and Paul Finster will be chief technology officer. Ms. Glinert will work with GIST's programming and strategic partners, focusing on business development, marketing and cross-media advertising campaigns. Mr. Finster will be directly responsible for managing GIST's global technology operations including strategic product development, IT, e-commerce and technical relations with GIST's rapidly growing list of distribution partners.

Adrienne Matt has landed squarely on her feet in a fabulous new position as Senior Writer at Channel Seven.com. Watch out for great work from this talented woman!

US Interactive, Inc., a leading International Internet professional services company, announced today that Stephen Zarrilli has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the firm. Zarrilli one of the company's original employees, had previously been the company's Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. He succeeds Larry W. Smith, who resigned his position as CEO March 1, remains a significant shareholder and will continue to serve on US Interactive's Board of Directors to assist in the ongoing success of the company.

After four years of hosting the nations only syndicated talk show completely dedicated to entrepreneurship, "Let's Talk Business," veteran entrepreneur Mitch Schlimer has been voted to the 1999 Talkers Magazine Heavy Hundred. The list, which is composed of the 100 most important radio talk show hosts in America, puts Mitch and the show's subject of entrepreneurship and small business on the map.

Biscom announced that it has been awarded a patent, by the U.S. Patent and trademark Office on a device that enables users to send and receive faxes and e-mail over the Internet from a single interface.

Well, "Bill Rudin is at it again," and aren't those fabulous words to hear? Last week Rudin announced that in a joint venture with Cogswell Realty Group, they will completely redo an old Northrop Grumman building in Great River, Long Island. SImilar to 55 Broad, Rudin's first adventure into the wired building world, and copied (thankfully) by the creation of the Plug 'n' Go program by the Alliance for Downtown New York, and the city's Economic Development Corporation, this 2 block-long building will have high-speed voice and data communications, video conferencing capability and a telephone system that will operate wirelessly within the center. Unlike its Gotham City sister building, however, the Long Island Technology Center will house a fitness center, in and outdoors recreational areas, child-care center. Similar to 55 Broad's Digital Sandbox, the Long Island Software Technology Network (LIST) was formed a little over a year ago, which has 514 member companies and organizations, will be the first tenant. This center will function similarly to how the Sandbox does. More info is at:
http://www.nytoday.com/scripts/editorial.dll?fromspage=re/RealEstate.htm&categoryid=&only=y&bfromind=44&eeid=131183&eetype=article&render=y&ck=22110129&version=587276&adrVer=920903146&ver=cg2.1

What else went on this week:* Webcinema-NYC Digital Video and Mini DV "Film Look" Demo on 3/4/99 at NYU.* No End meeting on building genuine community 3/11/99 * NYNMA Cyber Suds 3/10/99* WWWAC Brand-New meeting (w/Victoria's Secret) 3/11/99* Laura Sorokoff's fundraiser for the Leukemia Society Rock n Roll Marathon in San Diego 3/11/99

UPCOMING EVENTSFor the most comprehensive, up-to-date listing on all the cyberevents check out: http://www.TheCyberScene.com/ and click on Calendar of Events. PS. You can list your own and there's an HTML version too!

GIST Communications, the leading independent producer of TV listings guides on the Internet, is making news these days. They have added two seasoned and top-of-the-line industry professionals to their roster. Wanda Rachel Glinert is now executive director of marketing and Paul Finster will be chief technology officer. Ms. Glinert will work with GIST's programming and strategic partners, focusing on business development, marketing and cross-media advertising campaigns. Mr. Finster will be directly responsible for managing GIST's global technology operations including strategic product development, IT, e-commerce and technical relations with GIST's rapidly growing list of distribution partners.

Adrienne Matt has landed squarely on her feet in a fabulous ew position as Senior Writer at Channel Seven.com. Watch out for great work from this talented woman!

US Interactive, Inc., a leading International Internet professional services company, announced today that Stephen Zarrilli has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of the firm. Zarrilli one of the company's original employees, had previously been the company's Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. He succeeds Larry W. Smith, who resigned his position as CEO March 1, remains a significant shareholder and will continue to serve on US Interactive's Board of Directors to assist in the ongoing success of the company.

After four years of hosting the nations only syndicated talk show completely dedicated to entrepreneurship, "Let's Talk Business," veteran entrepreneur Mitch Schlimer has been voted to the 1999 Talkers Magazine Heavy Hundred. The list, which is composed of the 100 most important radio talk show hosts in America, puts Mitch and the show's subject of entrepreneurship and small business on the map.

Biscom announced that it has been awarded a patent, by the U.S. Patent and trademark Office on a device that enables users to send and receive faxes and e-mail over the Internet from a single interface.

Well, "Bill Rudin is at it again," and aren't those fabulous words to hear? Last week Rudin announced that in a joint venture with Cogswell Realty Group, they will completely redo an old Northrop Grumman building in Great River, Long Island. SImilar to 55 Broad, Rudin's first adventure into the wired building world, and copied (thankfully) by the creation of the Plug 'n' Go program by the Alliance for Downtown New York, and the city's Economic Development Corporation, this 2 block-long building will have high-speed voice and data communications, video conferencing capability and a telephone system that will operate wirelessly within the center. Unlike its Gotham City sister building, however, the Long Island Technology Center will house a fitness center, in and outdoors recreational areas, child-care center. Similar to 55 Broad's Digital Sandbox, the Long Island Software Technology Network (LIST) was formed a little over a year ago, which has 514 member companies and organizations, will be the first tenant. This center will function similarly to how the Sandbox does. More info is at: http://www.nytoday.com/scripts/editorial.dll?fromspage=re/RealEstate.htm&categoryid=&only=y&bfromind=44&eeid=131183&eetype=article&render=y&ck=22110129&version=587276&adrVer=920903146&ver=cg2.1

It was a comfortable group in a great Belgium resto. Viant hosted the first of their "Offline Dinner Parties" at the trendy Markt in the ol' meat packing district in NYC. A great chance to eat more mussels and moule frites (another trend I've noticed). I also had a chance to meet some great people and visit with old acquaintances. Mark Oster of Grant Thornton, and even Alison Fishman of Viant in San Francisco came out for the event. Terri Lonier (Founder/CEO, Working Solo) was telling me about her SoHo Summit, and its not a summit about the tragically hip neighborhood, but home office professionals. Laura Berland of Orb.net and I met f2f finally, and Jennifer Gold (barnesandnoble.com) and I shared stories from being in the industry since '94. Viant-ers Andrew Frank, Chad, Laura and Richard Adams were as gracious as ever, as was Marilyn Dintenfass, who spearheaded the whole event and spoke passionately on how truly wonderful this company is. They really invest in their people, which is one of the most important assets of a company, as the upcoming InfoTech forum will attest to! Eleanor Hass of eTechnologies Associates, Red Burns of NYU's ITP program and NYNMA's Alice O'Rourke (who looked stunning in an Indian-princess-inspired ensemble) also came to this fun eatery for sharing stories and taking a break from the hectic new media pace.

"Surfin' With Courtney" MSG's MetroByte (www.msgmetro.com) show where I reviewed Rock-related web sites. Check back on The Cyber Scene.com for streaming video of all the shows I've been a guest on.

AP Cyberspace writer Chris Allbritton was so kind as to mention me, along with Stacey Horn of ECHOnyc, and Rufus Griscom and Genevieve Fields of Nerve, as the NYC interesting content makers for the Silicon Planet piece. Here are 2 links:
San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/03/06/national1118EST0519.DTL

Good thing that I did not have these celebrity crazed fans around me all
the time or I might never have been able to get out of my house. I am
however a devious bastard by nature and so managed to sneak away with
relative ease.

I went on two tours this week. The first was to Credo Interactive Inc.
(http://www.credo-interactive.com ) Ken Bryson showed me about the office
and gave me a quick demonstration of their product. He seemed a little
confused as to what exactly it was that I wanted, but he was very obliging.
The product is called "Life Forms 3.0". It's a 3D animation program that
I'm told is easy to use--not that I would know. What struck me the most
were the different markets for this product. Ken said that anything that
requires the aid of three-dimensional visuals is a viable market (video games,
movies, 3D animation, etc.). My two favorite markets were choreography
and forensics, both of which seem to me to be clever ideas for this kind of product.

The other tour was of the company that I mentioned last week: Ingenuity
Works Inc. http://www.ingenuityworks.com (they're the one's doing the bike
tour of Canada). Cris Leykauf was kind enough to show me around the
offices. For a company that deals with educational software, they were
much, much bigger than I expected them to be, which just shows my ignorance I
suppose. I would guess that it has a great deal to do with Gary Gumley
(President and CEO) who is most definitely visionary and very big on giving
credit to those who work with him. I left the offices feeling inspired and
excited for the future of education.

New Media BC held a event on Canadians doing business in the US. The
speakers were: Greg Boos, Attorney at Law. He spoke about the various visas that a
Canadian can get. Max Legg, CPA. He dealt mainly with the way governments are all trying to get the biggest slice of Tax-pie possible. Scott Orange, President of NewGrowth Communications, Inc. spoke about marketing and the processes thereof.

Douglas McCracken, Commercial Officer for the Canadian Consulate General in
Seattle, told us about the various ways in which they can help Canadians who
are, or will be doing, business in the United States.

Next Thursday morning, March 11th at 7:30am, New Media BC will hold this
year's third breakfast meeting. Don Mattrick, President of Electronic Arts
Worldwide Studios, will be talking about how he built the largest
interactive entertainment software company in the world (sales last year
were over $1 billion dollars). If you want to find out more or reserve your
seat, contact Jodaye Garner by phone (604) 739-9878 or by email:
newmediabc@bc.sympatico.ca

A mix between memory lane and eye-opening reality check was my experience at The One Club's One Show Interactive awards show at The Roxy on Thursday, March 11th. Sean Skilling, creative director at Brand Dialogue was in attendance with a small posse of beautiful BDers including a recent hire who insisted on calling me "Mrs. Pulitzer." Sean reported great growth and successes on many levels, even on a personal level citing the popularity of "the girls'" web site. "The girls" are his parrots and you can check 'em out at: www.inch.com/~sskiling. Striking Audrey Fleisher of Ogilvy Interactive also was surrounded by her team of talented suave creatives including Daymon Bruck, Scott Storrs, Josh Grossberg and Mach Arom from Ogilvy Interactive. Ogilvy had many reasons to celebrate considering they left with quite a few "pencils" (the award of the night) for e-culture campaign work for IBM. Peter Seidler showed me his silver pencil for outstanding work on Casio's Corporate Identity web site at Razorfish. Dara Tyson of MecklerMedia was there, and I caught up with Damon Torres of Robocast. Damon's new company automates everything on the web and they were streaming and cybercasting the event. Lee Nadler (president/ceo, lead sherpa, Digital Pulp), Gene Lewis (senior prod. manager, manager info. systems) and Vincenzo Sainato (assoc. creative director, interactive media, Siegle & Gale) were enjoying the sense of how this show and our industry has grown up. Steven Sacks (chief creative director, co-founder, Digital Pulp) and I also had a nice conversation regarding how his company is enjoying nice measured growth and quality creative work, as opposed to worrying about IPOs and such. Kiley Bates (Editor, Urban Desires.com) was quite smashing in a slinky powder blue halter top and pixie haircut. Jason Parkin of Blue Dingo and Mike Essl and I all marveled at the fantastical solo dancing by Jason Wurtzel, senior engineer at Nicholson NY. Tom Nicholson might have been doing a private jig himself, considering his company enjoyed the honor of Best of Show for best self-promotion with their snowball fight holiday card. So successful it was that apparently school teachers called requesting their school's IPs be blocked as students were playing the game as opposed to researching on the Net. Honestly, throwing snowballs doesn't seem so bad considering what else is out there. Kyle Shannon of Agency.com, Alice O'Rourke of NYNMA were among the glitterati presenters. And Mike Knowlton of Oven spoke for some of his co-workers including Leanne Fremar and Jurgen Altziebler as he exclaimed how this show is so terrific because "it brings together all the aspects of interactivity with huge, traditional firms and smaller privately held shops. It's so comprehensive and it shows that it's so much more than the web." Salute!

Tuesday, March 09, 1999

It was a comfortable group in a great Belgium resto. Viant hosted the first of their "Offline Dinner Parties" at the trendy Markt in the ol' meat packing district in NYC. A great chance to eat more mussels and moule frites (another trend I've noticed). I also had a chance to meet some great people and visit with old acquaintances. Mark Oster of Grant Thornton, and even Alison Fishman of Viant in San Francisco came out for the event. Terri Lonier (Founder/CEO, Working Solo) was telling me about her SoHo Summit, and its not a summit about the tragically hip neighborhood, but home office professionals. Laura Berland of Orb.net and I met f2f finally, and Jennifer Gold (barnesandnoble.com) and I shared stories from being in the industry since '94. Viant-ers Andrew Frank, Chad, Laura and Richard Adams were as gracious as ever, as was Marilyn Dintenfass, who spearheaded the whole event and spoke passionately on how truly wonderful this company is.

They really invest in their people, which is one of the most important assets of a company, as the upcoming InfoTech forum will attest to! Eleanor Hass of eTechnologies Associates, Red Burns of NYU's ITP program and NYNMA's Alice O'Rourke (who looked stunning in an Indian-princess-inspired ensemble) also came to this fun eatery for sharing stories and taking a break from the hectic new media pace.

Radishes and cake if you get there late, you even miss the raffle." My friend Kimberly and I were stunned to have missed the raffle, only an hour into Barbie's 40th Birthday Bash at the Polaroid Studios in Soho on Tuesday, March 9th. Yes, even Barbie turns 40. There were no Barbie's at this party, though. Maybe a few Ken's, and a few photographs of Miss Thang on the wall by David Levinthal, the photographer from the new book on her. The tightly packed studio smelled of potato chips and cake, and a few radishes. Certainly not the Barbie food I remember.

"Radishes and cake if you get there late, you even miss the raffle." My friend Kimberly and I were stunned to have missed the raffle, only an hour into Barbie's 40th Birthday Bash at the Polaroid Studios in Soho on Tuesday, March 9th. Yes, even Barbie turns 40. There were no Barbie's at this party, though. Maybe a few Ken's, and a few photographs of Miss Thang on the wall by David Levinthal, the photographer from the new book on her. The tightly packed studio smelled of potato chips and cake, and a few radishes. Certainly not the Barbie food I remember.

"Now what were two nice men from Tennessee doing pouring German wine to strangers in Times Square," you might ask? Well, if it was William Bossert, VP-NA and Steve Farmer, Dir. of Sales, of Baden Wines International (www.badenwines.com), and you were at the European Wine Council's Grand European Wine Tasting at the Marriott Marquis on Tuesday, March 9th, then you'd know precisely why they were doing such a civilized action. The tasting, on March 9th, was a chance for buyers to sample wines, champagnes and cognacs for distribution and purchase. I visited the lunchtime affair to meet Susan Balasny, President of Bacchus Imports and Kevin Greaney to discuss their networking WineRave fundraiser on March 25th. New media art group Gen Art also will be taking part in this affair -- Anne Yoakam and I were also researching which ones we hope to share with you at an upcoming Cocktails with Courtney...The Loire Valley Meets Silicon Alley. Find out about more on my Calendar of Events.

Sunday, March 07, 1999

Most of us have heard of the Music Festival that occurs in the city during the hot, sticky month of July. It originated as the Macintosh Music Festival and has evolved into last year's extravaganza with main sponsorship from Intel. Last weekend however, on Saturday, March 6th and Sunday, March 7th at the New Yorker hotel was the 1999 New York Music and Internet Expo. (www.nyrocks.com/expo) For just $15 at the door you too could've seen skinny rockers in tight red leather pants, black furry jackets and cowboy boots and hat mixed in with skinny computer geeks in tight jeans and black t-shirts with clipped haircuts. It was quite a sight! This intersection of Geekdom and Music hippies was swarming with people angling to learn about Nomad or GoodNoise, or hear Richard Gottehrer (The Orchard.com) and Richard Stumpf (MCY) explain about their distribution service companies. Culture City and Discmakers were also distributors on exhibit. Custom CD showcasers included familiar Alley-ers EZCD and CDuctive. Oddest but most useful for audiophiles and joggers was the custom earplug. Similar to how your dentist takes an impression of your mouth for dental work (thank you Dr. Vincent Cali!), brothers Jeff and Steve Stegman (www.customearsets.com) will get an impression of your ear and send back a custom earplug! Best Booth award goes to Ed Furniture.com, a 1950s-styled puppet theater booth complete with recently made 1950-styled movies and a real-live 1950s-styled geek with coke-bottled glasses and a toaster in his arms. I'm still trying to figure out what they do though. Runners-up Spinner.com and EZCD.com had groovy skeletons and South Park Kenny dolls, respectively. Seth Price (who spoke on one of the panels later on Sun.) explained that EZCD was raffling off Kenny.

Musicians and bands played throughout the entire expo, but unlike the Intel fest, everything was in one place. New media lawyer and musician Steve Masur also spoke on the technology panel with Heidi Dangelmaier (hi-d.com) and Michael Dorf (The Knitting Factory/Knit Media). Spinner.com and EZCD.com were represented on the content panel by Scott Epstein and Jeremy Kagan respectively. One thing this expo didn't strike a chord on was timing -- everything was at least 1 hour behind schedule. Michael Robertson (CEO, MP3.com) gave a keynote address and Anthony Laudico (CEO, Muze, Inc.) mused about commonalties in the new media, new technology and new music trends. CD Baby Derek Sivers rounded out his 6 Top Marketing for Music People tips with "be weird." This was coming from a man with shaved head save the 3' long dreads stemming from the base of his skull.

Friday, March 05, 1999

BigStarDavid Friedensohn reports that BigStar is making mucho progress in terms of $$, $$%, and ##s. Investments, sales and traffic are up, up, up. Looks like his business savvy has grown with his new venture!

e-mediaAlright, you always wanted to see Evander Holyfield workout, right? Well you can! Just pointcher browser over to (http://www.holyfield-lewis.com) and you will see all the content, chats, merchandise and promotions surrounding the March 13th event you could ever want. e-Media, a full e-business, e-commerce, front and backend developer based in lovely New Canaan, CT developed the site with TVKO (the pay-per-view arm of Home Box Office), ESPN and Microsoft. e-Media will host streaming video content, including live streaming video of weigh-ins, workouts and pre- and post-fight press conferences. So check it out, order a pizza and enjoy the drama!

ifilm.net (http://www.ifilm.net), produced by the dynamic brother and sister team of Rodger and Marissa Raderman, has launched and is determined to change the dynamic of the film industry for good--in favor of independent filmmakers. Filmmakers and folks with an opinion about this sort of thing (writers, film enthusiasts, web surfers, etc!) are encouraged to participate, send feedback, suggestions, and submit work. You can even give other filmmakers feedback via the automated rating system or an online review.

iVillage:iVillage and Ralston Purina Company have announced a major content and e-commerce initiative for women who own pets. Ruff!

JAMTVJAMTV has officially changed their name to Tunes.com (http://www.tunes.com) and become "the Web's LARGEST music site," including MP3 downloads from major artists, Webcasting, personalization, Rolling Stone Radio, three major music pubs online (Rolling Stone, The Source and Down Beat), among many other features! Whoo!

KokopelliKokopelli New Media LLC, together with Merck & Co., redesigned and re-architected Merck's existing 3-year-old corporate site. The re-branded online identity for Merck is a result of hard work including an in-depth, online survey during a two-week promotional run, resulting in the collection of valuable data to guide the company's future online-marketing efforts.. (www.merck.com).

RazorfishRazorfish Studios acquired 100% of Simon Ventures, Ltd., which was started and previously led by Michael Simon, a New York based artist management firm, to help increase its stable of artists, as well as concentrate its efforts on continuing to produce cross-content media and develop talent. Ahem!

Scio-Ltd.Not just yet-another-e-mail newsletter: SCIO Ltd., (which means "I know" in Latin), an early stage startup founded by Jeff Hearon is offering "Internet Intelligence Now," an e-mail discussion and news resource dedicated toward tracking the growing security challenges facing an increasing networked world. Hearon says, "it is clearly focused on intelligence concerning Internet infrastructure vulnerabilities as expressed in such knowledge domains as infosec, iwar/infowar, and its related geopolitical realities." SCIO LTD seeks to provide a credible perspective on these issues and remove the cloak and dagger mystic, which is often associated with these issues and to offer a resource to freely discuss these topics. SCIO has three websites under developemnt, which will cover Internet intelligence, Internet Infosec e-commerce portal, and lastly a think tank. www.scio-ltd.com/net/org

"Hey, uh..." snap, snap, snap went the fingers, "you're that guy."
"Yeah that's me." I agreed.
"Bob right?"
"John actually."
"And uh, you're in..."
I opened my mouth but he stayed my remark by holding up his hand.
"No, don't tell me... Educational Software."
"Video games."
"Riiiiight!"
Ah fame.
Good thing that I did not have these celebrity crazed fans around me all the time or I might never have been able to get out of my house. I am however a devious bastard by nature and so managed to sneak away with relative ease.

I went on two tours this week. The first was to Credo Interactive Inc. (http://www.credo-interactive.com ) Ken Bryson showed me about the office and gave me a quick demonstration of their product. He seemed a little confused as to what exactly it was that I wanted, but he was very obliging. The product is called "Life Forms 3.0". It's a 3D animation program that I'm told is easy to use--not that I would know. What struck me the most were the different markets for this product. Ken said that anything that requires the aid of three-dimensional visuals is a viable market (video games, movies, 3D animation, etc.). My two favorite markets were choreography and forensics, both of which seem to me to be clever ideas for this kind of product.

The other tour was of the company that I mentioned last week: Ingenuity Works Inc. http://www.ingenuityworks.com (they're the one's doing the bike tour of Canada). Cris Leykauf was kind enough to show me around the offices. For a company that deals with educational software, they were
much, much bigger than I expected them to be, which just shows my ignorance I suppose. I would guess that it has a great deal to do with Gary Gumley (President and CEO) who is most definitely visionary and very big on giving credit to those who work with him. I left the offices feeling inspired and excited for the future of education.

New Media BC held an event on Canadians doing business in the US. The speakers were: Greg Boos, Attorney at Law. He spoke about the various visas that a Canadian can get. Max Legg, CPA. He dealt mainly with the way governments are all trying to get the biggest slice of Tax-pie possible. Scott Orange, President of NewGrowth Communications, Inc. spoke about marketing and the processes thereof. Douglas McCracken, Commercial Officer for the Canadian Consulate General in Seattle, told us about the various ways in which they can help Canadians who are, or will be doing, business in the United States.

Next Thursday morning, March 11th at 7:30am, New Media BC will hold this year's third breakfast meeting. Don Mattrick, President of Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios, will be talking about how he built the largest
interactive entertainment software company in the world (sales last year were over $1 billion dollars). If you want to find out more or reserve your seat, contact Jodaye Garner by phone (604) 739-9878 or by email:
newmediabc@bc.sympatico.ca

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